Pleasant Valley Farm

It's an unseasonably warm weekend, and a long one away from the office for me.  We're excited to be getting some things in the ground at last! Our garlic overwintered well, and the chives are ready to be cut anytime now.  Other than the lemon balm and oregano though, there's not much green in the garden right now.  Dan has been doing a bit of tilling and I'm excited to start the day tomorrow by doing a bit of planting.  We've got onion sets for some early green onions and some carrots, beets, radish and lettuce varieties to start.  All of these can handle a light frost, since we're sure to have quite a few more, even though the high today was 82.  This should put them on pace to be ready by Memorial Day, when we open the stand. Plus I've really been missing fresh greens, so I'm anxious for a nice spring salad!  I also couldn't resist picking up some bare root strawberry plants while I was out, so I think we're going to risk the frost and put them in the ground with a nice layer of mulch hay to keep the frost off for the time being.  While I'm not going to be planting enough to plan offer them at the stand, if I have enough extras I'm sure they will end up in some delicious jelly or jam for sale. 

Another project underway is getting another greenhouse up and operational.  Dan's tilled a few times, and once we get a new layer of plastic over it, we'll be able to plant tomatoes, peppers and a few other plants right in the ground for an earlier first harvest.  This is new for me, and I'm pretty excited about it. 

We hatched 39 chicks last weekend and are hoping for even more coming out of the incubator this week.  I love hatching, but I really get excited when we have hens dedicated enough to do it without my help.  The mothering instinct has been bred out of many, many chickens, so they literally won't reproduce without human assistance, which to me is sad. However, my golden phoenix hens hatched 12 of their own last year, so when I saw them pooling their eggs into one nest box this spring, I let them go and didn't take the eggs away.  A hen will only sit on the eggs when she thinks there is enough to invest her time in, so I let them build up.  This evening, there was a broody phoenix hen covering the eggs.  She didn't give up last year, so I'm optimistic we'll be seeing some naturally hatched chicks three weeks from now!

It was a very busy weekend here.  Thursday night I heard the first peeps coming from the incubator, we kicked off hatching season with a Delaware chick followed by many more Delawares, some Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons and a few Polish and Blue Cochins.  My favorite part of hatching season is opening up the incubator in the morning or after I get home from work.  When I pull out the hatching tray, it's just amazing to see little fluffy chicks where solid eggs were just a few hours prior.  Even after hatching hundreds of chicks, it never grows old for me.  In fact, this is later in the year that we started hatching previously, and I really missed it!

Another successful event this weekend was Friday's Farm to Table conference.  We only got a little lost on our way to the convention center!  It was great to finally meet Mia from PASA, I feel like I know her since we've exchanged so many emails.  She was really great in person, truly excited about local foods, and I look forward to meeting her again.  We had samples of my Black Forest Preserves, Carrot Cake Jam, Horseradish Mustard, Ginger-Garlic Mustard, and Thai Dipping Sauce available to all who walked by the PASA table.   Although all were well-received, the Carrot Cake Jam was the hands-down winner.  My favorite quote from the conference was a woman who not only wanted to buy a jar, but wanted me to make a whole bathtub for her so she could "just soak it all in!" I was amazed, even in a big place like Pittsburgh, about half of the folks who stopped by knew where Tionesta was.  We hope to see lots of them at our stand this summer!  It was a great place for farmers and other vendors to network as well.  Although I had quite a few requests to carry my products at other locations, for now the only place they will be available is at our stand here at the farm.

I was pleasantly surprised by the edible Allegheny table as well.  The magazine had contacted me last year about advertising in it.  Although it was a bit too expensive to fit into our current advertising budget, I offered to host them if they ever cared to do a story here.  I was told that only farms that advertise would get stories published about them  This really soured me on the magazine, because it is a beautiful publication that states its purpose as supporting local farms and seasonal eating, but I felt that if they only profiled advertisers, they were misleading the audience about the true availability of local food by ignoring small producers.  One of the women at the booth asked if I had heard of the magazine before, and when I relayed this story, she told me that it was not true at all, and that she was in fact the editor of the publication.  I gave her one of my cards, and whether or not they ever want to do a story here, I'm excited about the magazine now.  I'm looking forward to sitting down with the issue they handed out at the conference and to seeing the subscription come to my mailbox.

It's a crazily busy week here, I'm on a break but won't get away from my day job till well after dark today & tomorrow.  It all works out for the best though, as I will have enough hours in that I won't need to use a precious vacation day to be at the Farm to Table conference on Friday.  Dan and I will be leaving Tionesta bright and early after chores are done to head down the the David L Lawerence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.  We're going to be one of a only a few farms featured at the PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture) table.  They'll be helping us display some of my mustards and jams, and I'll have a small supply on hand for folks to purchace while I'm manning the table.  It looks like we'll be present pretty much all Friday morning, so if you attend, be sure to stop by and say hello!  Just look for the table with the big "Buy Fresh, Buy Local" banners!

The weather here has been beatuiful, the mud is drying and we have even more beautiful farm babies!  Lambing season continues, we now have a total of 6 healthy little lambs...5 rams (boys) and one ewe.  Last years we fininshed the season with 4 ewes and only 2 rams, so I guess it's just the boys' year this time!  We also have three more ewes who we are watching closely, as they have yet to deliver.

Both our sows have delivered their piglets, with Fern giving birth a few days after Char.  We have a grand total of 19 healthy little piglets!  Wow!

The incubator is filling with eggs and our first chicks of the season will hatch next weekend.  I've missed the soft peeping of chicks, so I'm excited about that, too.  I also spotted the first goose egg of the season this week.  This goose found a nice spot under the rabbit cages in the back yard.  It's fairly out of the way, but I can watch from my kitchen window, so I'm hoping she sticks with this spot for hewr nest this year.  I noticed this location as I moved the bantam Japanese chickens from that rabbit cage back into their summer home.  It is a bottomless pen called a chicken tractor, and now that the snow has melted, I can put those birds back out on grass.  It sure is nice to see them in the yard again!

The plants are coming to life as well.  I noticed the first glimpses of crimson popping up through the mulch covering our rhubarb patches.  The blueberry bushes are showing little buds and it looks like my rosebush survuved the winter.  A few early leaves of green mark where the oregano, thyme and lemon balm are in the herb garden as well. The daffodils are poking up and I'm sure the forsythia and lilac bushes will be blooming soon, as the buds are starting to swell on the branches.

Besides all the spring excitement, I'm also looking forward to the Farm to Table conference set for next Friday & Saturday at the David L. Lawerence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.  While the cost of a table for the 2 days was a bit out of our farm's advertising budget this year, we belong to the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, aka PASA.  They are featuring member farms and giving free samples of products at a table there, so I've already sent them a box of our jams and mustards.  Dan and I are planning on attending on Friday as well, and if all goes according to plan, we'll be at the PASA table when our farm is featured to answer questions and have some of our products to sell.  I think this is really neat, but I'm also just as excited to check out what other farms in our region are doing.  When I find out the actual time our farm is scheduled, I'll be sure to post it so that you can stop by and say hello if you're there!

Although the weather is a bit gloomy, the rain did get rid of the snow.  Even though it's still muddy, at least the water has stopped coming in to the barn.  The hog house has stayed wonderfully dry with its new roof, which is great since we have so many new piglets!  Charlotte had her litter Thursday-11, a new record for her.  While we lost a few the first few days, if she raises these 8 it will still be a successful litter.  Her sister, Fern, gave birth last night.  She had a whopping 12, but 2 were stillborn, which often happens with such large litters.  Again, we're still thrilled.

We though there would be a lull in lambing season as the 4 ewes still outside are young and historically, the youngest give birth a bit later on into the spring months.  However, looking out my kitchen window into the pasture, there is a new lamb who will need to be brought into the nice warm barn before nightfall!  The other five are growing at a record pace, and we can't wait for the pasture to dry up a bit so we can let them out!

We are super busy inside the house too.  We had tons of home improvement projects on the to-do list to get done over the winter.  Spring is here, so we're trying to do as much as possible while it's still too muddy to plow.  Once the outdoor work of planting and field prep begins, major inside projects are pretty much on hold!

Periodically, I try to review the sites that list our farm and keep them updated.  Yesterday, I looked at our eatwellguide.org listing.  I don't really like that one, because I can't edit it myself and it's just not user-friendly from a farmer's perspective.  Oh well.  I noticed that it still had our old RD Box address, so I clicked on it to update.  Then I noticed what it said about our products...no veggies listed, but all the meats were there, even turkey.  We didn't do turkey last year, but that's on our list of things to do this year, so I didn't see leaving it up as a problem.  Then I read the descriptions.  Pasture raised, no hormones, no antibiotics, organic methods...all were accurate.  Except one.  This listing advertised our poultry as being "100% vegetarian fed."

While chickens aren't meat-thirsty carnivores, they aren't strict vegetarians, either.  We don't feed our chicks any animal byproducts, just high protein, corn based poultry feed.  However, we do raise them on pasture.  The pens they live in have no bottom, and are dragged to new grass each morning.  This means that they not only have new grass to pick at and eat, they have lots of bugs to hunt and kill, which they do.  I've even seen the egg hens chasing each other when one of them kills a frog...a prize each wants to claim.  A chicken is designed by nature to hunt bugs as a part of its diet.   If you watch a chicken in a true free range/pasture pen, its attention is always drawn to the small movements of insects.  It just makes sense to me to let nature take its course and reap the benefits in the garden of having the chickens controlling the insect population. 

So what is the big deal?  My chickens eat bugs, who cares?  The problem I have is the misleading advertising that is present in our food system.  "100% vegetarian-fed"  is just a buzzword to get you to buy a product.  It's a lie if the chickens are truly raised in outdoor free range conditions.  It also makes you think that animal welfare is important, but if the birds can't eat bugs, they must be raised in some pretty sterile, unnatural conditions.  I've seen the phrase on plenty of egg cartons dropped off at the farm.  An under-educated customer buys it, but are they getting what they think is being advertised?  Maybe.  I'll never advertise my chicken or eggs as vegetarian-fed, but unlike big industry, I would never feed them beef by-products just to up the protein content of the food. (Yes, this actually happens- it's standard procedure for factory farms.) 

 As a consumer, find a farmer and ask about the living conditions and type of feed used if it is something you want to know about.  Small farmers make their living by being open and honest about what we do and how we do it.  We welcome and encourage educated customers. 

Pleasant Valley Farm is now on Facebook, too!  Become a fan and get the latest updates and farm pictures!

For what seems like forever, the farm has been blanketed with snow...unbroken white all the way to the tree line. With a week of spring sunshine under our belts and temperatures breaking 60 today, it's quickly being replaced by more spring-like footing- mud everywhere!  Although the pond in the pasture is still frozen over, it won't be for long.  I can see the outline of the water shading the snow and ice yellow.  I'm guessing in a day or two there will be open water.   For now, the ducks are swimming in a rather large puddle between the house and the greenhouse.

We hope to be in the greenhouse, starting vegetable seeds, before long.  Another box of seeds arrived today in the mail.  Even though I placed the order and know what's inside, I still rush to open it.  It's like holding a box of promises.  Each packet whispers another secret, another color, another taste.  I can't wait to be elbow deep in trays and potting soil.

I swear, even the animals get spring fever.  Although the doors remain open all winter, the chickens don't venture out if there is snow on the ground.  Today they were looking for buried treasure in the exposed mud.  A couple of the Phoenix hens need to have their wings clipped again, as they are spending more time loose than in their outdoor run these days.

Last night, I let the cows and horses out while I cleaned up the barn and put feed in the feed boxes.  As I was scooping our home-ground feed out of the barrel, I looked out the window to see the cows racing through the pasture.  The animals generally go to the creek and drink and then mill about the barnyard until the door reopens, but last night the cows raced through the pasture, turning around the island of trees and brush halfway up the field.  Fiannait led the way, her heels kicking up higher than her ears in what looked like bovine glee.  Louie, Happy and Baby Buzz weren't far behind.

Our five little lambs are doing well.  They seem to be in a constant state of joyful motion; jumping and frolicking as much as they can in the pens.  We can't wait to let them out so they can  play in the great outdoors.  That will come soon, we hope in the next couple of weeks if the weather cooperates!

The sun has been shining here for almost a week now.  It's refreshing after all the gloomy and snowy days of February.  The snow is melting and soon Dan will be able to begin plowing for the year.  My goal is to take lots of pictures of the equipment and how the process works and get it up on the website sometime this spring.  It will look a lot like the page up now that covers hay making.

I just hit "send" on another seed order this morning.  I can't wait to begin starting seeds!  we plan on making use of the greenhouse this spring to get a jump on the season.  We plant around 75 different vegetable varieties every year.  Sometimes I feel like  it's hard to narrow it down to that many, as the seed catalogs do a good job of making everything sound so good!

Our little owl friend is still living in the barn.  After a bit of online research, we've decided that we have a red phase screech owl.  We have been wondering if it is looking for a nesting site, so I looked up the dimensions and we hope to have a nest box hanging for it soon. 

I think this is one of the hardest times of the year...while the sun is shining, I feel like I should be outside, doing something!  But with a foot of snow still melting off the fields and pastures, it's really just not time yet.

We have a fairly recent addition to the barn crew. While normally we don't encourage wildlife to take up residence in the building, sometimes it is beneficial to us and the critter.  In this case, I'm happy to share the hay mow with an owl. It's not a barn owl, as those are white with big, moony faces, and our visitor is a smallish owl, reddish brown in color.  Matt thinks it's called a barred owl, and i haven't had time to look up anything more specific, so I'll go with that for now.  I love seeing wildlife as long as they don't damage our crops or hurt the livestock.  I think it's part of being sustainable.  While we are stewards of the land, we share it with other creatures who call it home as well.

Our owl has been hanging out for a couple of weeks now.  The upper part of the barn is where we store hay, machinery, and where the feed grinder is located.   We've been able to grind a bit of our corn into animal feed now that Dan has the Wisconsin engine up and running, so that means there is a bit of corn dust on the floor of the barn.  It's not much, but it is enough to attract the mice that live in every barn.  An owl loves to eat mice, and I love the idea of one of these quiet birds cutting down the rodent population.  This owl has probably been living there, finding a nice quiet spot to be behind the stack of loose hay, so some evenings you see it, most you don't.  It doesn't appear to be terribly afraid of people, and we go about our chores without scaring it off.  Tonight, after chores, I was in the kitchen fixing dinner when Dan came in and told me it was hanging out and visible from outside, so I went to check it out.  Old barns like ours bear the mark of the builder.  That's why you'll notice a small, cut-out shape near the peak of most barns.  This was the signature of the builder.  Ours looks like a diamond with a small triangle at each point...the result looks something like a cross.  It's just a small, open hole that doesn't cause problems as far as rain getting in or anything.  Tonight, it was the perfect look out spot for our small owl friend, who was perched there, surveying the barnyard.  A little thing like this won't hurt our large rabbits or hen, and I am sure it will find more than enough small mice to keep its belly fed, so I hope it stays.  Who knows, it may be a she looking for a nice safe place to hatch a nest of baby owls!

 

It's a bit later than past years, but this week we're dusting off the incubator and filling trays with fertile eggs.  We invested in a large incubator that lets us set about 60 eggs per week.  This year, we'll be hatching Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, Delawares, Golden Phoenixes, and Blue Cochins.  There will probably be some crossbred chicks from the other breeds as well, but we don't keep aggressive roosters, so I don't have an Ameracauna or Polish rooster at the moment.  That may change as spring moves on, but for now we're not planning to offer them this year.  

I've missed hatching, so I'm happy to get this underway.  Even after hatching literally hundreds of peeps the past couple years, it's still exciting to get up in the morning and see small fluffy birds where eggs were the night before.  We set on Sundays, and the chicks will hatch about 21 days later.  We have three levels for trays in the incubator and a hatching box in the bottom, so once we start setting we will have 50+ chicks hatch every week. An 80% hatch rate is pretty good, although we've hatched 95% or better in some batches.  Some batches were below that too, which is why it's important to keep good records to find out what happened.   Once the eggs are set, it's pretty low maintenance; our incubator has a bucket on top for water to keep the humidity up that doesn't need filled often, and the trays turn every 4 hours, eliminating the need to do it by hand. A mother hen will rotate the eggs by shifting around on her nest, but a mechanical incubator just tilts the trays at an angle one way, then the other.  If you have an incubator that doesn't come with that feature, you need to turn the eggs over by hand every few hours (at least 3-4x per day) or the chicks will develop lopsided and stuck to the inside of the shell and won't hatch. The incubator beeps every time it shifts the trays, and after a week or so we don't even notice, it just becomes part of the normal noise of the house. (The incubator is inside, in a small heated space off of the kitchen.) However, guests notice the noise right away and tend to look at us slightly alarmed, since it does sound a bit like a smoke alarm or other such warning!

Dan and I started this project 2 years ago, the first batch was hatched in a small Styrofoam incubator in a spare bedroom in a trailer I rented at the time.  Most hobbies give the encouragement that you, too, can learn to do this, but we were a little apprehensive about incubating eggs.  The catalog we got our first incubator from also had a book called A Guide to Better Hatching.  The description said that hatching was possible now with this new book.  The book itself was no more reassuring...humidity too high? Nothing will hatch.  Too low? No hatch. Too warm? They might not hatch, or they might be deformed.  And so on...we were partly worried we'd never get it right, but tried to reassure ourselves that it couldn't be that hard, since after all, a chicken could do it!  I can still remember the excitement of looking through the small plexiglass window and seeing small cracks in the shells on day 21.  I must have called Dan three times between the time I got home from work and the time he came to my house with updates!  Having a large incubator, we set up brood pens with heat lamps out on the enclosed porch, but for a time the brooder was right in the house too.  I was a bit worried that Puff, my big fluffy house cat, would think the chicks were kitty play toys and bat them through the bars, but he's lazy and just thought that the heat lamp was set up for a nice warm kitty sleeping area near the pen.   While it will probably never be quite as exciting as the first time, it's still a joy to get up on a Sunday morning and hear soft peeping coming from the incubator while you put the coffee on!  Another sure sign of spring!

Today brought lots of driving and a less than looked forward to meeting at my day job, so it was good to come home to more baby lambs.  Rosa, had been staying in the barn for the past 10 days or so, baa-ing for food whenever a person came or went.  It can be a bit frustrating, hoping for lambs daily and continuing to wait, but as Dan kept reminding me "they have to come out sometime!"  Today, we have another set of twins.  Rosa is my favorite ewe not only because she's friendly to the point of being a pest, but because her lambs are always just a bit different looking.  The first one I saw was black with a key-like white shape down her face, and last year she had black twins with bits of white markings.  So, before I changed into barn clothes, I asked Dan what the new twins looked like.  "One black, one white, both rams" he replied.  Rams mean boys, which means they won't be here past fall.  That's too bad, I thought out loud, disappointed that I wouldn't have a little ewe to keep as part of the permanent flock.  But Dan reminded me that we never speak negatively as long as there are healthy mammas and babies and the little ones are getting fed without a 2AM feeding from us.  I have to admit how very right he is.  

Upon entering the barn, Rosa began calling to me...or more specifically, to the cookies in my pocket.  I went over to check out our newest arrivals.  One is all black with a tuft of white wool on the crown of his head.  He looks much like his older siblings.  I looked a bit closer at his brother, for a minute I though his wool was still dirty, since being born can be messy.  No, not dirty...brown.  He's mostly white with brown rings around his eyes and brown across his back.  I've never seen a lamb like this before, either here or on any other farm.  Rambo, the father, is a pure white polled Dorset, and Rosa is all black and of uncertain breeding, but all other babies have been black with a touch of white on face or legs.  Some of the other ewes have had all white lambs with some black "freckles" across the muzzle too, and most sheep come out all white.  So he's unique.  And although the boys are newborns, they already are taller than the lambs in the next pen (who are also thriving and bouncing about!).  But most importantly, Rosa is feeding both.  Last year, she also had twins but only cared for one.  The little guy she rejected was also born blind.  While he was able to see just fine a week later, we had to bottle feed him.  I'd much rather feed mama a cookie and let her take care of all the late night and early morning feedings.  Plus a pocket full of cookies is far less expensive than a sack of milk replacer at the feed store!

 

 

We kept 10 piglets from the last litters.I don’t name them, because they are going to be in someone’s freezer come spring, and I know that. I do try to keep somewhat of an emotional distance from the food animals, while at the same time treating them with love and respect.Pigs are smart and funny.Our have been trained to water themselves…it makes less mess if there isn’t a big container of water for them to wallow through in their pen. So, just like the horses and cows, we open the door to the pigpen every evening and they run down to the creek to drink.After quenching their thirst, they usually run around, rooting up the snow or chasing the sheep and geese.It looks like they do this just for the entertainment of watching the other critters run.Eventually, they file back into the building they live in.They know fresh food and a dry bed await them when we close them in for the night.

If the piglets could talk, I have no doubt they would tell me this is their favorite time of the day. The minute they hear me filling a bucket of water or opening the door to the hen house, they squeal and start pushing at the door.I think a pen of hungry dinosaurs would probably make less noise.When it is their turn, they rush out so quickly that I sometimes see one on top of another for a few steps, since none want to be the last one out.After the frantic racing is over, I watch the door some nights to shut it when all 10 are back inside.Lately I’ve offered them a cookie by standing very still next to the path with my arm outstreched.One taker one day led to much friendlier piggies.Last night, they were racing down to the creek when one stopped, turned around, walked up to me and just stared at me, head tilted to the side ever so slightly.I looked down at this piglet at my feet and realized that she was asking me for a cookie.I pulled one out, offered it to her, and she took it gently.Munching the cookie, she turned and scurried down to the water with her siblings.It was one of those times when you are certain you know exactly what another creature was thinking, without words. I also don’t believe she’d taken a cookie from my hand before, so it was a rather charming moment. She had seen the others get a snack and saw that they trusted me enough to eat from my hand, and that nothing bad happened to them. I know it sounds a little Disney-fied, but Dan happened to be filling a bucket of water and saw the whole thing.Even living on the farm his whole life, sometimes he sees the animals act in a way that is still surprising.This was one of those times.He agreed that there really was no explanation other than that the pig stopped, turned, and asked me in her wordless way for a cookie.

I read with great interest yesterday, both in an e-newsletter and a print newspaper, that the federal government is discontinuing the National Animal Identification System as previously proposed.  For once, the voices of small farms and consumers appear to have been heard.

The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was a pretty scary thing to small farmers.  It proposed mandatory identification of all places that housed livestock by GPS location.  This would apply to factory farms down to grandparents keeping one pony for their granddaughter or a couple who has a half-dozen chickens as pets and for eggs.   Then, all large animals would need to be microchipped (also readable by GPS satellite) and the government would need to be notified if the animal was sold, died, gave birth, or was taken off premises.  This would need to occur within 24 hours of the event to avoid a fine of hundreds of dollars per animal involved.  The cost of microchipping, record keeping and government notification would, of course, be the responsibility of the farmer.  If passed, this literally would have meant that if my husband and I took advantage of a nice day and rode our horses down to the lake through the woods, with full consent of all property owners, we would still need to notify the government within 24 hours that those two horses had left the farm for a few hours.  If the government happened to notice a signal from the microchips off the farm property and did not recieve such notification, we could recieve 2 fines, one for each horse.

 So why would the government be bothered?  The reason was food safety...this way, any animal found to be contaminating the food chain could be traced back to the source, and any other affected animals could be withdrawn from the nation's food supply.  This sounds perfectly reasonable, until you read enough to know that the main offenders of contaminated meats, the factory farms, or CAFO's, wouldn't need to microchip any of their animals.  The government would only need them to register the location of the operation and give a number of animals housed & processed there.  No traceability by animal.  This is wrong.  Most farms thought so too, as the government was only able to register about 36% of estimated farm locations despite years of promoting voluntary registration.

Big beef, pork, and poultry were not opposed to this regulation.  It really didn't apply much to them, and hurt the small farmers with undue costs and government regulation, all in the name of safety.  I wouldn't feel any safer had this passed, would you?  Big meat gets its business by selling its products at virtually every grocery store at the cheapest price possible.  All the recent recalls show that safety isn't the #1 concern.  If you buy meat from a small, responsible farmer, we are staking our reputation on every package sold.  If you get sick, you won't come back, and you'll tell your friends not to visit us, either.  Besides that, small farms are committed to product quality, a personal relationship with customers, and healthy food.  Killing your customers with e. coli just doesn't fit into those values.  Besides, I don't need a microchip to tell you about your meat.  I can tell you the age, sex, color, breed, parentage, diet, birthday, name, and anything else you care to know about the live animal that produced the meat we sell.  A microchip wouldn't be of any advantage to our customers, because all they have to do is ask, and that information is already available to them.  We don't feel we have anything to hide, and that, in my opinion, is the quickest route to food safety.  Put a face on your food.  Know where it comes from.

 The new proposed regulations, according to the article I read in Farm & Dairy, would apply only to animals or products crossing state lines, would be regulated ultimately by states or tribal nations (some states had already passed laws protecting their farms against the old NAIS proposal) and would be pursued by lower-cost technology.  This seems more reasonable, but I'll be interested in seeing what the details of this plan look like.

The plan was dropped not only because of farm opposition or groups representing small family farms, but because concerned consumers voiced their opinions to local government officials, and everyone made their voices heard during 15 stops on a national "listening tour".   If you were one of those voices, I thank you, as do many farms across the country.  Today we can chalk up a victory for the small farm, something that happens far too rarely.  

O.K.... I'll get off my soapbox now.  I promise next time to write about more cute animal happenings here at Pleasant Valley! 

Our small flock of sheep has just increased by two!  We began the winter with 7 ewes and our ram.  Four of the ewes were born last year, so while they will probably lamb in the late spring, we won't look for that to happen until late April or sometime in May.  Of the other three, one is two years old, and the others, twin sisters, are what I like to refer to as the "senior ladies."  Their names are Nutmeg and Rosa.  If you've ever stopped by the farm and been mobbed by a black sheep looking for treats, that would be Rosa.  Nutmeg is a bit more reserved, but still fairly friendly.  She's been in a pen in the barn since last week.  We noticed her udder was filling up, a sure sign that lambs won't be far behind, so we penned her up where it is warm and dry.  She gave birth sometime last night, to two healthy lambs, one female and one male.  Here's a picture of them.  They are less than 18 hours old!

 

 Rosa is also looking like her udder is getting large, so we set up a second pen for her tonight.  I lured her into the barn with a bag of sheep bait...otherwise known as day-old bread from the local bakery outlet.  I gave Nutmeg a few slices as well as a treat for a job well done.  We're looking forward to even more lambs.  They're a sure sign that spring can't be too far behind, despite the blizzards we've seen lately!

 

I'm finally in the process of making vinegar.  One of my Christmas presents was a vinegar cask, a large, pear shaped container with a spigot on the bottom.  It is used to ferment the vinegar, with the final product being heavier and sinking to the bottom.  The spigot lets you remove some without disturbing the "mother." The mother is a whitish, jelly-like substance that floats on the top of the liquid and converts the alcohol in wine, hard cider, beer or any other alcoholic beverage into an acid, which make vinegar.  It functions much like yeast does in home beer or wine making- it's best to buy a good starter so you can be confident your end product is going to be what it is supposed to be.  It was also a treasured possession years ago, much like a good starter for sourdough bread.

 The first step was deciding what kind of vinegar I wanted to make.  The season is past for buying good, local, unpasteurized apple cider, plus I would need to ferment it into alcohol before starting the vinegar making process, so I figured that could wait until next fall. I don't use a whole lot of red wine vinegar in my cooking, so I though a nice white wine vinegar would be a good choice.  However, Dan and I have really developed a taste for a champagne-dill mustard lately, and I just can't seem to re-create it here at home.  I'm thinking that I need champagne vinegar, and I simply can't buy it locally.  So, it just seemed logical to try and make some of my own!

The next step was to buy the champagne.  Since I live in Pennsylvania, the only place to buy it is at the state-controlled liquor store.  When I walked in, I was the only customer in the store, so the gentleman working there came over to try and help me find what I was looking for.  I was just comparing prices, because I'm not going to buy really expensive champagne to turn into vinegar, a moderate priced one seemed like a much better idea.  When I explained what I was doing, the man got a very puzzled look, and suggested which brands were drier and might be more like vinegar.  I tried to explain that it was a process of refermenting the alcohol, which seemed to totally lose him.  I'm sure I'm the only person who has walked into the Tionesta liquor store lately for vinegar making supplies!

After I made my purchase, I brought it home and poured the champagne into the cask, added some water, and dumped in the mother of vinegar culture I had purchased through the LocalHarvest online store. I covered the opening loosely with cheesecloth to keep out dust and kitty hair, and put it under the sewing machine in the living room.  It needs to be near the wood stove, as the mother works best when the temperature is near 80 degrees.  In a few months, I'll be sampling my own vinegar!